(January 18 – written by Dave)
Today we’ll do a quick post to show off some highlights of Zacatecas. We really liked it here – it is feels really old world with lots of narrow streets and steep stairs – mostly it is walkable if you are fit and don’t mind the odd flight of uneven stairs. The city of Zacatecas is located in the south central part of the state of Zacatecas, which is in the middle of the Mexican Plateau. It was founded in 1546 after the discovery of silver. Zacatecas glory days were in the 16th and 17th centuries as the silver was tapped.
Over the years, they’ve done a great job of preserving many of the old buildings, yielding a UNESCO world heritage listing today. It is built on the steep slopes of a narrow valley – we rode over the top of the hills and down into old-town yesterday. I’m still trying to convince Nancy that we don’t have to ride back out the steep slopes that we came in on. All of the streets are bumpy, rough old cobblestones – not exactly bike friendly but they give the city a nice feel.
Like many places on the trip, we’d never heard of Zacatecas before. And also like many places, we’ve only just scratched the surface both in terms of history and culture. Today we just wandered the old-town area with no agenda – it was nice and relaxed. Photos below should give you some idea…
Cathedral de Zacatecas
Cathedral de Zacatecas detail
Ice cream cart at the ready
Cathedral de Zacatecas from our room
Us in Zacatecas
Zacatecas narrow street
Zacatecas flowing down the hill
Guard dog on roof – woof
Zacatecas city police moto
Temple de Jesus
Sustenance was required – two green and two red tamales – yum
Poet Velarde and Dave (yeah, I’d never heard of him either)
I caught a fish this big….
Old cathedral parts used to make a wall
Nancy getting a shot
Zacatecas spilling down both sides of the hill
A quick update on our hotel. We are now in our third room. Last night’s room was too noisy and too far from the WIFi for internet. So we moved rooms this morning only to find a flooded toilet and then moved for a third time. Our room now is quite grand – I think they felt sorry for us – this is a very professional hotel. Little do they know, this hotel, any room really, is much better than the places we normally stay by every measure. Thanks for the efforts all the same Mision Zacatecas.
Tomorrow we head towards Aguascalientes – we’ll stop about half way there. Nancy is currently researching hotels and stop options. She is having trouble finding inside photos to check for toilet seats. We’ll be stepping down after a couple nights here for sure.
Leave Without Pay 
I think you should travel with your own toilet seat. Think a blow-up kind,
Thanks Ken – sounds like a business idea for you to try out – it’s not a product that we’ve seen.
Looks like a good place for day off. Happy riding tomorrow.
Thanks Inge – it is cooler, only 65F so we’ll have to rug up!
All the towns must have street sweepers as the streets are so free of trash
Plastic bottles are overly prevalent – mainly because there is no value in recycling them. Cans and paper are worth $$$ per kilo, so people collect them. There have been remarkably few homeless people however, throughout Mexico.
We are jealous of your tamales. We are so tired of Vietnamese food. And, we have been experiencing many “squat” toilets, and lots of garbage everywhere.
Good point about the squat toilets. Our “no seat” is probably less bad. Our last hotel rating blog post from back in 2011 included squat point deductions. When we eventually re-do that post. we’ll keep you guys in mind.
Can you name the Hotel “must have” list & # of points earned? Sounds like toilet seat is #l = 5 pts.? Just for our knowledge base when traveling!
Is cleanliness #2 or maybe that needs to be reversed & become #1?? Such a dilemma!! Thanks for your efforts!
See Paul’s comment above, no seat could be “not the worst thing” when it comes to toilets.